If the enemy got their hands on them, and on the body of the wraith and the third furie they had in cold storage on the mansion grounds, then it could turn the tide of the battle against Keras and his brothers. The enemy would force Cassandra to bring the wraith and the furie back from the dead. With that furie back on the field, Meadow would grow stronger again, and with Marinda in their possession to complete the cycle of power that flowed between the three goddesses, the Erinyes, it would be a catastrophe.
The air chilled around him, pulling him out of his thoughts.
Daimon stood toe to toe with Ares, glaring up at his face, his irises glowing white in the darkness.
Because Ares was speaking ill of Esher. Esher and Daimon were close, the closest out of all his brothers. Badmouthing Esher in front of Daimon was always a good way of causing an ice storm.
Frost flowers bloomed and glittered on Daimon’s black leather gloves as he stared Ares down.
Ares huffed, his breath fogging in the air. “We need to face facts. Esher is struggling. His blood bond with the Hong Kong gate is proof of that.”
Daimon opened his mouth as if to argue and then snapped it closed.
“With Hong Kong so unstable, there is a chance that closing Paris will make the remaining gates too powerful and too unpredictable.” Marek cast Keras a look that had his hackles rising.
Because it questioned his strength.
He could handle the power of the Tokyo gate. They could close every gate except that one and he would still be able to handle it. He narrowed his eyes at his brother, tired of everyone questioning him. The darkness hissed at him again, whispered words about Marek and a certain goddess.
A goddess who always chose to visit his brother and not him.
A goddess Keras shut out of his thoughts.
He focused on the discussion, used it as a distraction to deny her and the weakness that infested him, one that had him wanting to think about her. He ignored the darkness that flowed in his blood, that murmured words of her and tempted him to recall her image, to remember days long past. He twisted the silver band on his thumb, spinning it with his index finger as he fought with himself.
With that possessive side of his blood.
Treacherous blood. Vile poison.
He wanted to bleed it all out of him.
Keras tamped down that need and focused once again on his brothers, trying to quell the darkness as his hand shifted back to his pocket. He focused on the pillbox. On the promise of relief it offered. He just had to make it through the next few minutes.
He looked Ares straight in the eye. “Seal this gate.”
He knew it was dangerous to close another one, but he wanted to drive the enemy to react. He needed to force their hand. He looked at the city again, at the otherworld.
“We need to do something,” he murmured, lost in the screams that rent the hot smoky air and the vicious snarls of the daemons hunting the humans who had loosed those terrified cries.
Lost in the beauty of destruction.
Wanting to step into that world and feel the heat of the fires that licked over the buildings and devoured the trees, to bathe his hands in black daemon blood and feel the slide of it over his skin.
“The enemy is out there,” he said, his voice distant in his ears. “Gathering strength. Recruiting more daemons into their ranks. We are giving them too much time.”
Ares heaved a long sigh and sounded as reluctant as he looked when he said, “You’re right. We need to force their hand. But if I do this… I have a condition.”
Keras dragged his green gaze away from the burning city of the otherworld and fixed it on his second in command.
“I’m withdrawing from battle.” Ares held his hand up when both Marek and Daimon went to speak, silencing them. “I have to think about Megan.”
His heavily pregnant bride.
Keras wasn’t sure how he was meant to feel about her pregnancy, wasn’t sure how he was supposed to react. When she had first announced it, he had forced a reaction, because he hadn’t felt anything.
Now, as he thought about her heavy with child and saw the love in Ares’s eyes, the depth of his need to take a step back from the battle to be with her, Keras felt something.
An itch to reach into his pocket, slip a pill from the box and swallow it.
A hunger for the quiet and the cold, the numbness that was a comfort to him.
He forced himself to remain still and deny that compelling need.
Forced himself to see in Ares’s eyes that he meant it. His brother, who had always adored fighting above anything else, wanted to be benched.
The world truly was ending.
“Very well, but if we need you, you will have to fight.” Keras kept his tone even, devoid of emotion as he held his brother’s gaze, ensuring that Ares knew he meant every word.
Ares nodded. “If it really comes to it, I’ll fight. But if it’s shit like tonight, I need to prioritise Megan.”
Keras was fine with that, as long as both of them understood what was at stake and that when the time came, Ares needed to be in the thick of things with the rest of them. He wouldn’t sideline his best warrior just because the Carrier female was pregnant.
Ares held his hand out to Daimon.
Daimon levelled a black look on Keras as he drew his coat back and slipped a small throwing knife free of the holster that sat snug against his ribs over his navy turtleneck. He slapped it down into Ares’s hand. “Still think this is a bad idea.”
A light entered Ares’s eyes as he looked at Daimon, one that warned Keras that Ares thought it was a bad idea too.
The lengths Ares was willing to go to in order to be taken off the field had curiosity rising to the fore.
Just how far would Ares go to protect Megan and his unborn child?
Would he turn on his own brothers?
Join the enemy?
Keras immediately discounted those thoughts, shutting them down. Ares was loyal, fiercely so. He would never turn on his family, on the Underworld. He served it as faithfully as Keras did.
A bright blaze of violet light dampened his vision and he squinted off to his right, at the hovering orb that twisted a few feet off the ground. It rose higher into the air and began to expand, chasing back the night as it formed a disc.
The centre of the gate.
It reached five feet across and then ten. This was the only gate that stood vertical. The light of it obscured the panoramic view of Paris, dampening even the bright beam of the Eiffel Tower as it pulsed, a wave of power emanating from it that buffeted him. A band emerged from the central disc, shimmering with rainbow light as it grew. Glyphs appeared around it, symbols that shone brightly as another ring appeared from the centre. Similar markings filled that ring as it twisted in the opposite direction to the first, lazily rotating clockwise around the disc.
The power lacing the air grew, hummed in his bones as the gate formed, almost a dozen rings spreading outwards before it stabilised.
Keras looked to Daimon and Marek. “Be on your guard.”
They both nodded and he turned his back to the gate, his sharp senses stretching outwards, into the shadows that surrounded the terrace.
Seeking daemons.
Ares muttered something behind him and the scent of his brother’s blood laced the night air, rising above the fetid stench of spilled daemon blood.
Keras kept his focus on the world around them, hunting for signs of daemons as Ares worked to close the gate, using a combination of his blood and wards, a sort of spell contained in a glyph, to seal it.